Year: 2017

There’s a New Hackspace Magazine Out, and It’s Controversial

The Raspberry Pi Foundation have launched a new monthly magazine called HackSpace. The problem? The Foundation doesn’t actually have anything to do with hackspaces. Hackspaces are volunteer-run makerspaces which usually operate on a not-for-profit basis. Running costs are covered by membership subscription fees which are kept as low as possible, often operating on a ‘pay-what-you-can’

Shared Machine Shops at the Tate Modern

Earlier this month the Tate Modern hosted a mini exhibit on shared machine shops (i.e. makerspaces) as part of its Tate Exchange program. It featured a couple of photos from my fieldwork in the USA this summer alongside an audio piece featuring recordings from my hackerspace back home in Brighton. Read more about the exhibition here.

Meet: The Factory at Knowle West Media Centre

The Factory is a makerspace offering digital fabrication courses and product design and manufacturing services from a shiny new business park on the edge of the Knowle West housing estate in Bristol. The Factory is part of the Knowle West Media Centre, a charitable arts organisation that has been supporting the local community in Knowle

Making Spaces: A Research Event Exploring Equity for Children and Young People in Makerspaces

I’m currently working as a research assistant for a team at UCL’s Institute of Education that’s investigating the educational and identity equity potential of makerspaces for young people from socially disadvantaged backgrounds. Back in July we organised a research symposium at UCL’s Institute of Making. Read their write-up of the event here.

Meet: Seattle Attic

Seattle Attic is a feminist makerspace in the suburban Fremont neighbourhood of Seattle. Since opening in 2013 they’ve inspired various other feminist hackerspaces to open around the US, including Double Union in San Francisco (which I wrote about in an earlier blog post). The Attic aims to be a welcoming place for women to work

Meet: Mothership HackerMoms

Mothership HackerMoms is a women’s makerspace in Berkeley, California, just across the Bay from San Francisco. Its aim is to provide a community and co-working space for women with childcare responsibilities who otherwise would find it hard to have time to work on their own projects and may end up staying at home and becoming

Meet: Double Union

Double Union is a feminist hackerspace in San Francisco, located on an industrial estate in the Potrero Hill neighbourhood next door to the building that used to house the offices of the Mythbusters TV show! DU was originally inspired by another feminist hackerspace, Seattle Attic, which aimed to be a welcoming place for women to

Meet: Noisebridge

Noisebridge was one of the first hackerspaces to open in the USA. It’s part of the wave of spaces founded after a group of American hackers including Noisebridge’s co-founder, Mitch Altman, visited existing European hackerspaces including c-base and Metalab after the 2007 Chaos Communication Camp in Germany and decided to set up their own hackerspaces

Hunting the Machine Ghosts of Brighton

This April, Kat Braybrooke and I gathered 28 brave souls to explore algorithmic ghosts in Brighton — a city known for its blending of new-age spiritualities and digital medias, but perhaps not yet for its ghosts — through the launch of a new psychogeography tour for the Haunted Random Forest festival. Check out our write up on the Furtherfield blog.

Meet: Metalab

Metalab is one of the oldest hackerspaces in Europe. Its workshop in the center of Vienna – in between the Austrian Parliament and Vienna’s Rathaus (city hall) – has been open since 2006. It got started when a few friends wanted somewhere to meet and exchange ideas, and to get access to machines that they